Posts tagged “handset”

The highly anticipated HTC G1 phone on T-Mobile, the first Google Android-based handset to go on sale, won’t be available until October 22nd but has already apparently sold out.

According to T-Mobile even after tripling production on the G1 there were so many pre-sales for the device that it has sold out. You can still order it but you won’t be able to get it right at launch.

Given the great anticipation and the heavy pre-sale demand for the T-Mobile G1 with Google, we nearly tripled the number of phones initially available for delivery on our Oct. 22 launch date, and have sold through them all. However, to accommodate additional T-Mobile customers who want to pre-order a device, they now have the opportunity to place a pre-order through Oct. 21, for delivery at a later date. Also, people can still pre-register on the T-Mobile G1 Web site to be notified prior to launch where they can purchase the device beginning Oct. 22.

It’s no secret that Nokia has been working on a touchscreen phone for a while now. Even if you haven’t heard about their device code-named “Tube”, you’ve got to figure they’ll need a direct competitor to the iPhone, HTC G1, and several offerings from Samsung and LG.

According to industry sources, Nokia will be officially announcing their the new handset at a media event on October 2nd in London.

Android Market (online store similar to Apple’s App Store for the iPhone)

YouTube playback

Another neat feature that I hadn’t heard about before this morning is integration with the Amazon MP3 store for purchasing and downloading DRM-free songs starting at 89 cents. Just like the iPhone, you’ll need a Wi-Fi connection to purchase a song, but you’ll be able to preview it using your phones data connection.

Look for reviews to start hitting soon and check out the G1 in person beginning on October 22nd when it hit’s T-Mobile stores for $179 with a two-year contract.

Cellular carrier announced a few weeks ago that they were looking into their own iPhone App Store-like online store that would allow their handsets to download new goodies similar to how the iPhone and iPod Touch can now using Apple’s App Store.

T-Mobile’s Venetia Espinoza and Sue Schmitz announced a bit more info about what to expect from the upcoming store:

The initial offering will allow free and paid apps and nothing will contain advertising. There will also be no Android apps (they will be in Google’s own Android Marketplace store), nor will there be Sidekick apps.

The developer agreement will be available next week.

50/50 revenue split with developers able to increase their amount to as much as 70% if they meet certain criteria such as providing multiple points of contact for support and supporting 10 or more T-Mobile handsets.

T-Mobile will provide demo handsets and a virtual lab to developers.

Free apps can be added to the store at no cost to developers but there will be limitations for how much bandwidth they can use.

There won’t be an API available to allow developers to access handset features such as GPS, contacts, camera, etc.

We’ve known about the new Palm Treo Pro for a few days now, so it’s not too much of a surprise: Palm has officially announced the Treo Pro.

Palm looks to take on BlackBerry handsets with the Treo Pro and they aren’t being very shy about it. Palm’s vice president of marketing Brodie Keast says that they’ve “chosen to partner with Microsoft to compete effectively with [BlackBerry maker] RIM.”

At the same time, Keast says that there is plenty of room in the smartphone market for both companies to grow saying that “even with the growth in this market, 90 percent of the market doesn’t have a smartphone. It doesn’t make sense to fight over the 10 percent…we want to reach out to people who don’t have a smartphone, not people who already love RIM.”

So…they’re taking on RIM, but not taking on RIM I guess is the [mixed] message.

The Treo Pro will be available in September in Europe via Vodafone and O2, in Australia via Telstra, and the US directly from the Palm store.

Pricing on Vodafone, O2 and Telstra will vary and in some cases will be free with a new contract. In the US it will be unlocked and unsubsidized for $549. I would expect some US carrier to pick it up and subsidize the price a bit but no official word on that yet.

More carriers will be announced down the road for the South American and Asian markets.

Check out the new video below to see the Treo Pro in action and to hear some palm executives pitching it:

The first iPhone clone to get attention was the M8 MiniOne by Meizu, first showed off in late 2006.

The M8 is back in the news and may actually be releasing later this year.

According to Meizu CEO Jack Wong the M8 (MiniOne has been dropped from the name because people kept referring to it as just the M8 so the company is going with that) will be available in white only and will be released in October or November of this year “at the latest.”

The hardware is “essentially the same, but the software has been improved.”

The New York Times reported today that T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a handset based on Google’s Android platform.

The handset, made by HTC and called the Dream, could be out as early as October, possibly sooner if the FCC clears it earlier than expected.

The Dream will have both an iPhone-like touchscreen as well as hardware controls, and feature a slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Silicon Alley Insider was able to do an early review of the Dream and says that the the video below is pretty accurate but in comparison to the iPhone it is “big and bulky” and the user interface that is less intuitive.

Google also appears ready to [finally] update it’s SDK to the unlucky masses who weren’t among the 50 winners of the developers contest held earlier this year and who have been given early access to updated SDK builds.

In a move probably not meant to confuse consumers on purpose, Sony today announced a new, slim cellphone called the T700. If you’re familiar with one of their recent digital camera announcements you already know the naming problem but in case you’re not here it is: they’re both called the “T700”.

Sure the camera is technically called the “DSC-T700” but that’s still a little too similar if you ask me.

Specs of the new T700 cellphone will include;

Quad-band GSM and UMTS/HSDPA 2100

2-inch TFT LCD screen

3.2 megapixel camera with cell-id geotagging and photo light

Bluetooth with support for A2DP

Stereo speakers

512MB of memory (in the form of a Memory Stick Micro which is included in the box)

Up to 4.5 hours of 3G talk time

Just 10mm thin

No real specific launch or price info yet, but look for it to hit “select markets” in Q4 of this year.